Staff Pick

Books written by Judith Butler

Of Grammatology

Jacques Derrida’s revolutionary approach to phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralism, linguistics, and indeed the entire European tradition of philosophy—called deconstruction—changed the face of criticism. It provoked a questioning of philosophy, literature, and the human sciences that... More Info

Before and After Gender

Written in the early 1970s amidst widespread debate over the causes of gender inequality, Marilyn Strathern's Before and After Gender was intended as a widely accessible analysis of gender as a powerful cultural code and sex as a defining mythology. But when the series for which it was written... More Info

Vulnerability in Resistance

Vulnerability and resistance have often been seen as opposites, with the assumption that vulnerability requires protection and the strengthening of paternalistic power at the expense of collective resistance. Focusing on political movements and cultural practices in different global locations,... More Info

Undoing gender

Undoing Genderconstitutes Judith Butler's recent reflections on gender and sexuality, focusing on new kinship, psychoanalysis and the incest taboo, transgender, intersex, diagnostic categories, social violence, and the tasks of social transformation. In terms that draw from feminist and queer... More Info

Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly

Judith Butler elucidates the dynamics of public assembly under prevailing economic and political conditions. Understanding assemblies as plural forms of performative action, she extends her theory of performativity to show why precarity destruction of the conditions of livability is a galvanizing... More Info

Dispossession

Dispossession describes the condition of those who have lost land, citizenship, property, and a broader belonging to the world. This thought-provoking book seeks to elaborate our understanding of dispossession outside of the conventional logic of possession, a hallmark of capitalism, liberalism,... More Info

Frames of War

Explores the media's portrayal of state violence and its influence on how the western world engages in warfare, contending that misleading depictions of oppressed or troubled foreign nations has prompted the rationalization of the deaths of large population groups. Reprint.
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The Question of Gender

A generation after the publication of Joan W. Scott's influential essay, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," this volume explores the current uses of the term -- and the ongoing influence of Scott's agenda-setting work in history and other disciplines. How has the study of gender,... More Info

The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere

The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role doesùor shouldùreligion play in our public lives?
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Subjects of Desire

This classic work by one of the most important philosophers and critics of our time charts the genesis and trajectory of the desiring subject from Hegel's formulation in "Phenomenology of Spirit" to its appropriation by Koj?ve, Hyppolite, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze, and Foucault. Judith Butler plots... More Info

Gender Trouble

Since its publication in 1990, Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture.
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